Monday notebook: Rod Carey recaps UCF, discusses QB room
Temple head coach Rod Carey gave his weekly press conference with reporters on Monday following the team’s 42-7 blowout loss at the hands of UCF on Saturday.
“We got through the film yesterday and it is more of what we thought," Carey said. "Self-inflicted wounds against a good team."
The third-year head coach said he hasn’t made a decision yet on defensive end Will Rodgers when asked if he lifted with the team on Monday, but wouldn’t elaborate any further. Rodgers did not travel to the team’s game against UCF.
Carey also mentioned that safety DaeSean Winston was still making progress on his recovery but the timetable for his return is still unknown.
Here are a few other quotes from Carey’s press conference.
Carey on preparing to play an inexperienced quarterback vs an experienced one:
“You look at the tape is what you do and you base off, whether they are a freshman or a senior, the level they are performing at and what you need to do to take away, and what you need to try and do to them given a scheme. Some experience certainly weights into that but that’s really where you start on those things. Obviously, when you deal with an inexperienced guy there are some different things you can do than dealing with an experienced guy who has seen it all.”
Carey on his role working with the quarterbacks this season as opposed to previous seasons:
“D’Wan (Mathis) and I have a relationship that we established from the time that we started recruiting him to him being here. So, we’ve worked very hard at building that relationship and building that trust. Certainly, I have a lot of confidence in (quarterbacks coach) Jake [Landry] having played for us back at North Dakota … have a lot of trust in him and their relationship is very good. Us three, along with (offensive coordinator) Mike [Uremovich], certainly, we’re all communicating constantly during the game, outside the game, during the week, and we’re all taking those steps together. We are doing what we’ve been doing.”
Carey on his plan to use Justin Lynch for 10-15 plays per game:
“D’Wan is our quarterback. Justin has played and will play some to take some hits off of D’Wan. That is the plan.”
Carey on fixing the team’s slow starts on offense:
“We’re constantly trying to fix that issue between penalties and different things that have set us back on opening drives and situations that we are overcoming, at times, but not to a point where we’ve gotten in the end zone consistently enough in the first quarter this season. That is something we are continuing to emphasize, do situationally, and we’re going to keep at it.”
Carey on Mathis’ post-game comments about what his relationship is like in terms of being able to go to Carey and Uremovich to tell them what he’s seeing pre-snap and if they can make changes. On Saturday, Mathis' answer to that question was, “I don’t … I mean, sometimes, but I don’t really have that luxury.”
“This isn’t something that I’m going to play out … we talk all the time. I talk to D’Wan every day. Mike talks to him every day, Jake does. D’Wan talks to us every day. We are in communication. As far as what you guys, I don’t know, are asking, as far as ‘can he check out can’t he check out.’ Listen, every offense has situations where you can check out and where you can’t check out, and we talk, and he gets our input, and we get his all the time. So, I don’t know how I can put that any clearer to this line of questioning. I don’t know where it came up from, but that is what we do all the time. Is everyone understanding that? There shouldn’t be any grey area in that, right?”
Carey on how Mathis feels about their plan to use Lynch in certain packages moving forward and if they’ve talked about it:
“Yea, I have. We’ve talked with him. We’re together on it. They’re together on it.”
Carey on working with new Athletic Director Arthur Johnson so far:
“Obviously, I was at his press conference and excited to have him. I know he’s excited to get going, too, and get around everybody and learn about the whole thing. Certainly, have had text messages and phone calls and been able to see him periodically in the time leading up to this. Then, we did have our first all-staff meeting today, so it was it good to get everybody together for really one of the first times since before COVID. It was good to way to bring everyone together.”